And so it starts again

The puck has dropped on a new season and that means it’s time for the pen (or font) to drop on a new season of Jen’s Journal.

It always amazes me how quickly the days fall back into routine once the season starts: wake-up, head to the rink, watch practice, interview, edit, update, head to the office, work, head to the rink, eat, warm-up, game, post-game, sleep. Yes, it’s repetitive, but I enjoy the structure of hockey season.

In fact, my following six months are so structured that I can probably give you a loose outline of my schedule for any day between now and April 12th. You know those fascinating people Oprah tracks down who can give a detailed account of any day in history? Well I’m exactly like that, but the opposite and not nearly as smart or entertaining.

PICK A DAY, ANY DAY

Despite those small differences, I think you’ll be impressed by my ability to predict the future. Here’s a hypothetical (yet very likely) example of a day in the year 2010: A big-shot TV executive would like to schedule a meeting with me on March 18th to discuss developing Jen’s Journal into a primetime series staring Katherine Heigl.

Being a Thursday, I can say that I will be busy shooting The Link from approximately 9:30 to 10:30am. Then, being the day before a game, I can say with almost absolute certainty that the team will skate at 11am, and that the skate will run for at least one hour. And after that, the media won’t be in any rush to produce pre-game stories, so the locker room interviews will last until about 11:30.

After that, Mr. Quinn will address the media until about 11:45, at which point the web team will retreat to our web room or back to the office to edit and post the interviews and update The Team Today. We will also edit and post The Link at around this time, and then start preparing the game preview for our game vs. Detroit.

So, I should be available from about 3:00 – 3:45 on March 18th, in case your contacts at NBC are curious.

HELLO TOM 2.0

I can go on and on about my upcoming schedule of commitments, but I don’t want to intimidate our new blogger, Tom Parker (aka U.K. Tom, because “Blogger Tom” has been claimed by Tom Gilbert and he’s quite protective about that moniker).

U.K. Tom will be writing a new blog every week from his home in Merry Ol’ England. (Or so he claims. He may be writing from that fish and chips shop off Jasper Ave, but I didn’t see him when I was there for lunch.) He posted his first entry yesterday, and I must say that I’m impressed by his storytelling abilities and grammar. He seems to have a pretty good handle on the English language, but I guess that’s to be expected since he’s probably a direct descendant of William Shakespeare or Mrs. Oxford of English Dictionary fame.

But seriously, I hope you enjoy UK Tom’s new blog and welcome him into our online community. However, just because he’s new here doesn’t mean you’re allowed to reassess your blog allegiances. I know I can’t compete with Blogger Tom, but if the import starts stealing my numbers, I’ll be mighty disappointed in you.

Until next time,

Jen

Ps. About the pre-season trip to Winnipeg, yes, it was quite nice to go home again and visit with my old MTS Centre coworkers. But to be honest, I was only in town for five hours or so, because we flew in right before the game and out right after. Not the visit I was hoping for, but an excellent experience nonetheless.